I just shockingly came across some old writings of mine

[cilla4progress]

on a backup drive.

They are quite personal; deal with inner demons, family, and other relationships.

I'm not sure if I do - or don't - want my daughter (or husband) to discover these some day, perhaps after I'm gone. Likely no one - other than me - will ever look at them again.

Save or toss?

[Hugh_Lebowski]

1. If they have artistic value, and don't say things you really don't want said ... keep (nt)

[SheltieLover]

2. Keep & revisit periodically.

Perhaps write more abput the topics.

Keep under lock & key, if necessary.

[lapfog_1]

3. save and encrypt

you can always decide later what to do.

And, should someone find them before you decide, the decision will still be yours.

[in2herbs]

4. If, when written, these writings helped you work out some "demons" and these demons are

no longer creating the issues in your life that resulted in these writings, I vote to toss them. You are no longer that person, no reason to hold on to the past that you've moved on from.

[ItsjustMe]

5. Bury those demons from the past

Toss them and don't look back to those bad times

[Doc Sportello]

6. Perhaps you could update to today

It might be useful as a therapeutic. Also, it might form a narrative you could have an independent editor or fellow writer take a look at, with a nom de plume if you don't want to reveal yourself. As someone else said, you could encrypt them and decide later if you want to give the key to them.

[hunter]

7. Whenever I build a new computer I transfer all my old files over to it.

I've been doing that since the late 'seventies.

There's a lot of demons hiding out in those files.

As a young adult I was a magnet for trouble and had a few partners in crime, including a sort-of girlfriend. I broke up with her by jumping out of her moving car. That was after she assaulted a guy in San Francisco. It was that kind of relationship.

Somewhere around 1984 I started to get my head together and decided I'd try to live a normal life and by 1986 I'd deleted most of the crazy stuff from my files, especially references to my ex.

I may or may not have been paranoid at the time that the feds were going to seize my computers and ruin our lives. Paranoia is sometimes a component of my mental illness.

Looking back, most of the dumpster diving mischief I got into was pretty mild and I sometimes wish I still had those files. What was painful then isn't so painful now and I'm sort of curious about what was going on in my head at the time.

[cilla4progress]

8. Wow - great stories

Thanks!

I only deleted what I thought could be harmful.

Some day maybe the kid will come across these and know a little more about what went on inside her mom!

[bucolic_frolic]

9. Save for posterity

You're probably a better writer and those are more interesting than some of the top 10 bestsellers. I'm reading one from about 2011. This is by a major major author. I'm amazed at how the characters are so brilliant - "brilliant" - and have the most astute observations, but the reader has to think twice about it and it's still not precise, and despite the top of the world elites in the book it is all accomplished with prose pitched at a 9th grade reading level. The exposition is pedantically slow. THIS sells tens of millions?

I think I'm going to write. It's not how the author writes, it's the audience it's pitched at. The demographics.